


Cold Rage and Cold Beer

by Sassaphrass



Series: Bruised Knuckles and Bleeding Lips [3]
Category: Black Sails
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Bonding over Beers, Career Criminals, Charles is an asshole white guy with dreadlocks, Gen, Guy Ritchie inspired, Male Friendship, Revenge, Underage Prostitution Mentioned, unlikely friendship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-02
Updated: 2017-09-02
Packaged: 2018-12-22 19:17:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,676
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11973960
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sassaphrass/pseuds/Sassaphrass
Summary: Charles Vane, mid-level drug lord, and general terrible human being, makes friends with Billy Bones, who works muscle for a rival gang.The End is nigh, better settle the bar tab.





	Cold Rage and Cold Beer

Vane is working on a bottle at the bar, and everyone is giving him a wide berth.

 

They were used to him here, and had learned to recognize his more dangerous moods.

 

The uncomfortable truth of the matter is that when you live with monsters long enough eventually you become comfortable there, and it's living without monsters that becomes frightening.

 

 

That was why when Vane had heard that Teach was back in town the first thing he'd felt had been this warm blossoming sense of relief.

 

For all the shit that had gone down, for all that Teach had always reminded Vane a little too much of his father,...somehow Vane was still relieved the rat bastard was back.

 

He'd actually come to the bar with the intention of acting on a tip Jack had given him but, then he'd heard the news: Edward 'Blackbeard' Teach was back in town, which meant there'd be trouble. Probably at least a few men dead by week's end, since the shit-head liked his violence so much.

 

So he was drinking, and thinking of going home to move onto something harder, the only thing preventing him from doing so is the memory of Jack's disdainful exasperation when he'd come to drag Vane out of the gutter the last time he went on a bender.

 

Maybe it's because he's thinking of him, that he somehow manages to hear it when someone says Jack's name across the bar. He turns in his seat. That curly haired pretty boy that's been hanging off Flint lately is talking shit.

 

About Rackham.

 

Who, granted, certainly doesn't make any effort at all not to be an object of ridicule, but...seriously: Rackham is Rackham. He's the best money man in the business, he has absolutely no fashion sense and that unpleasantness with Anne's little murderous rampage a few months ago doesn't change that.

 

“What is the story there?” curly mop-head asks obnoxiously. “Why does anyone even take him seriously enough to bother shunning?”

 

Vane is staring at the mirror behind the bar and debating whether he could hit that annoying little tumour if he threw the bottle without turning around.

 

The rest of Flint's crew look uncomfortable, and then Dufresne, the money man on Flint's team speaks up.

 

“You've heard the story about what Anne Bonny did to Vane's last crew. And that wasn't even personal. You fuck with Jack Rackham, you make it personal. You don't even know what she did to the guys that roughed him up to get back at her.”

 

Curly-annoying face looks confused. “Wait, he just fucked his way in...and everyone's okay with it?”

 

They shrug. Someone pipes up. “Whores are part of the business, sometimes.”

 

Curly-annnoying face laughs. “I should have guessed! Does he work at that brothel or does Anne keep him all to herself?”

 

That does it. Vane's about to start chucking glasses and making scenes, but someone beats him to it.

 

There's the sound of someone slamming a fist against a table, and a man roughly the size of a mountain unfolds from the back of the bar.

 

Billy Bones is unmistakable. He's probably the tallest man this side of London and more than that he's... _Billy_.

 

Everyone knows Billy, everyone likes Billy. He's not ambitious. He's not a threat to anyone and because of that people tend to forget him. They let him fade into the background more than should be possible for someone that tall, that muscular and that pretty.

 

But, if Vane has a talent beyond bloodshed it's recognizing those extraordinary people that everyone else overlooks.

 

People like Anne and Jack who everyone else had ignored before Vane had brought them onto his old crew. These days everyone forgets that they ever doubted the usefulness of a skinny scrap of a girl and a soft scrap of a boy in the running of a gang of violent criminals.

 

Billy's like that. Vane can see things bubbling under the surface of that one. There's a wall in him. Something unyielding and immovable that Flint is too self-obsessed to see and Curly is too arrogant to consider worth noticing, but Vane sees it.

 

Right now, everyone in the bar does too, but only for a second and only because Billy let's them see it.

 

Vane gestures to the barkeep, and then swaggers over with a pint in hand. The minnows part before him, but Billy just crosses his arms and looks down at him.

 

Vane drops the pint in front of him. Billy wordlessly takes a long swig and then sits back down. The tension in the bar eases and everyone starts talking again.

 

Vane smiles without warmth.

 

“Wouldn't have thought you'd have cause to care what people say about Jack Rackham.”

 

Billy tilts his head at Vane, as though he's some unpleasant puzzle. “I don't care.”

 

Vane takes a sip of his Guiness . “So why did you make a scenee?”

 

Billy pulls the corners of his lips up into an expression that is definitely not a smile.

 

“There's people that have earned the right to talk shit 'bout Jack fucking Rackham. And that annoying little cunt is not one of them.” he says blithely, with a nod towards Curly.

 

“Gotta say I'm surprised to see you here.” Vane says roughly.

 

Billy looks at him. Just, **looks** at him. Straight in the eye, no bullshit, no fear. It's rare that anyone looks at Charles like that. Even Jack is wary half the time.

 

Eleanor used to look at him like that sometimes, before everything went wrong.

 

It's a thought that makes Vane equal parts breathless and uncomfortable.

 

“I heard you got pinched. There was a rumour Flint sold you out- left you behind on purpose for the cops to pick up 'cause you were asking awkward questions. Heard you were going down for a long time.”

 

Billy blinks once. “I was, but I cut a deal, got released.”

 

“Gates died, while you were away.” Vane tells him.

 

Billy looks at Vane like he's fucking stupid. It makes Vane smile into his drink.

 

“I'd heard.” Billy snaps.

 

“So why are you back with Flint.”

 

Billy looks around the bar and drinks his beer a bit. He's thinking.

 

Finally he talks. “I hate to say it but all Flint's talk about the world changing? It's not hypothetical anymore it's happening and all this...”

 

He waves to the bar and it's patrons, not a single one of whom makes any sort of legitimate legal living.

 

“...It's going to be burned to the ground if we don't hang together.”

 

Vane snorts. “He's got you believing that nonsense now?”

 

“It isn't nonsense.” Billy protests.

 

“Every fucking election some new man claims he's going to clean up this lot. They make noise but they never make a difference.”

 

“This one is different.”

 

“And what's got you so sure?”

 

Billy looks at him again. That same hard, unafraid look. Vane was wrong earlier. Eleanor looked at him like she refused to fear him. It doesn't even occur to Billy to be afraid.

 

“ They held me without charging me for most of a week, and during that time they broke half my ribs. No lawyer. No call. They let me go on the promise that no matter what it took I'd bring in Flint. No lawyers there either. You ever hear of the filth acting like that?”

 

Vane scowls. “Flint killed Gates you know.”

 

Billy looks at him contemptuously. “And humiliated you. So, what? You hate Flint. I hate Flint. But, Flint sees a way out of this, and you? You just talk shit, and run drugs.”

 

He stretches his long legs out under the table. “I'll deal with Flint one day. But right now, there are more important things.”

 

Vane glares at him. “Like?”

 

Billy smiles a little. “Like making sure we all get through this alive.”

 

Vane raises his eyebrows. That's not usually the sort of sentiment their kind of people have. Sure, there's loyalty within the various gangs and crews that run operations in those corner of the city, but as Anne's little murder spree had proved, loyalty only extends so far in their circles.

 

“Even Curly-McCuntface?”

 

Billy takes one last swig on his beer and then looks around. “Who are you fucking right now, other than Jack?”

 

Vane blinks. He hadn't thought many people knew about that.

 

“No one special.”

 

“You want to get out of here?” Billy asks.

 

“And...fuck.. _you_?”

 

Billy snorts. “You wish. And talk somewhere with fewer malicious ears..”

 

He nods significantly towards Curly Annoyingson who despite carrying on an animated conversation with Flint is clearly watching Billy like a hawl. “Just want to make sure that if we go off together some coked up bitch isn't gonna emerge from the shadows and stab me.”

 

Vane grins. “You're safe. Let's go.”

 

They wander off to a college bar that Billy apparently frequents.

 

It's funny. Vane hasn't spent much time with 'normals' in a long time. He works with drug dealers and con artists. He frequents the clubs that act as fronts for drugs, or money-laundering or trafficking of one sort or another.

 

Vane feels uncomfortable surrounded by fresh-faced co-eds and graduate students who study science or anthropology or whatever.

 

He grins when the social studies students glare at his dreadlocks.

 

It's funny Vane's forgotten that for those not in the know, it's Billy who looks scary with his buzzcut and his muscles and his plain white tees. Vane actually doesn't look too different from some of the students in the bar. A little older maybe, and definitely the only white guy with dreads, but between the necklaces, the scarf, the belts, the bracelets and the v-neck in a lovely shade of teal, he looked much more like a hipster than a skull-basher.

 

Actually, stopping to think about the bracelets and the necklaces and the scarf Vane has to admit that Jack has probably had more of an influence on his fashion sense than he'd previously admitted. Which was pretty horrifying. Vane didn't know anyone with worse taste than Jack Rackham.

 

 

Billy leans back, looking deeply amused and very relaxed.

 

But then again, Billy's always pretty relaxed. It probably comes from being the sort of fellow who just needs to stand up to silence a bar.

 

Stupid ginormous pretty fuck. Long experience with malicious women has left Vane with the impression that people who are too pretty cannot under any circumstances be trusted, see: Max and Eleanor. But, Billy as solid as they come, which everyone knows, so Vane can't even muster up much energy to be annoyed with him.

 

“Well?” Vane asks.

 

Billy sips his beer. “Well, what?”

 

“You don't want to fuck, so what did you want?”

 

Billy looks at him incredulously. “I thought you wanted to talk to me! You're the one who was making it an issue.”

 

“Only cause you defended Jackie's honour.”

 

Billy scoffs. “I hardly defended his honour.”

 

Vane looks at him and let's it show a bit just how grateful he is that Billy spoke up. “It's more than anyone else has done for him in years. He used to hang around outside that bar, you know? People'd kick him. After what Anne did it was practically a sport to chase him down and piss on him.”

 

Billy exhales through his nose and then leans across the table to look at Vane intently.

 

“Yeah, I knew that. Jack followed everyone with a crew around like a lost puppy, until eventually you took pity on him and took him on.”

 

Charles shrugs. “It's as good a way as any to get into the business.”

 

Billy raises an eyebrow. “How'd you get into the business than?”

 

Vane blinks, thinking of the racket his dad ran, of burning flesh and running like hell.

 

“Was a kid. Made a name for meself and caught Teach's eye. He took me on as part of his crew.” he shrugs. “And here we are.”

 

Billy nods. “Same story for me. I worked for someone that used to pay protection to Gates' old crew...the one before Flint. He took a liking to me and brought me on to work for 'im.”

 

Vane squints at him. “So?”

 

Billy shrugs. “So, you took a liking to Jack and Anne. It's not that different. It's a fair way into the life.”

 

Vane sneers, and wishes he could smoke inside. “Only I wasn't fucking Edward, and unless Gates was seriously twisted h-”

 

Vane doesn't finish that sentence because just starting it gave Billy a face like thunder and while generally speaking Vane firmly believed he could beat anyone due to his inherent shear ferocity that didn't mean he was eager to tangle with all six and a half feet of Billy Bones if the man was in a rage.

 

Vane leans back. “It's a little different.”

 

Billy tilts his head. “You know how Silver got in?” he asks.

 

“Who?”

 

“Curly hair, blue eyes-”

 

“Oh, Curly McFuckface. No, haven't heard that story.”

 

“He lied and then blackmailed Flint over a job.”

 

Vane blinks. “And Flint didn't skin him?”

 

Billy shakes his head slowly. “Nope.”

 

Vane pauses to think. “Remind me again why you're convinced we need Flint? Other than the fact you drank the Kool-Aid?”

 

Billy meets Vane's gaze with that look again. The same one from before. No bullshit, no fear, and no aggression. A brick wall.

 

“There's a warrant out for Richard Guthrie's arrest.” Billy tell him.

 

“What, no?!” Vane hadn't heard that. In all the many shake downs of Nassau district they'd never come for Guthrie, never even got close to him.

 

“Yeah, they're not playing this time, and there's blood in the water. They aren't just lookin' to throw a few of us in for a two stretch. They're actually looking to tear the whole operation down. Guthrie's lucky he made it out of the country.”

 

“Shit.”

 

“Yeah. Now, Vane, do you know much about cops?”

 

Vane shrugs, and then grins and shakes his head. “Nah. Me, I've always been lawless. Dad had a crew, before he retired.”

 

Billy nods. “Well, I know Filth. I know 'em in and out. I watch 'em like Degroot watches the road. And to them most of us are dirt beneath their feet, but Flint? He's the fucking boogeyman. And after the DeLima job?” Billy clicks his tongue. “He may as well be the fucking devil. And they're... riled up so anything we have that we can use to our advantage, we take. No questions asked.”

 

Vane huffs. He can't argue with that. The DeLima job had been brilliant, and Vane could understand the fear Flint inspired. The difference between Vane and Flint was that there were line Vane wouldn't cross. But, Flint? There was nothing he wouldn't do, if he thought the outcome was worth it.

 

The fate of Hal Gates proved that if nothing else.

 

“So...we need Flint.” Vane concedes.

 

Billy nods and toasts his glace. “We do.”

 

Vane bites his lip. “If it's as bad as you say, we don't just need Flint. We need an escape plan.”

 

Billy waves around him. “I got one credit left in my corporate law degree and unless you're as moronic as you look you've got a couple million squirrelled away somewhere.”

 

Vane blinks. “You'd go legit?”

 

As far as he knows, no one hates the very thought of going legit more than Billy does. It's not like Vane, who lives to fight, or Anne who's got something to prove, or Jack who just dreams too hard to fit in the real world. Billy doesn't choose this life because it gets him what he wants- money, violence, or notoriety, Billy chooses it because regular life disgusts something deep in his core.

 

Vane doesn't understand it, but he knows. Everyone knows. No one hates the cops more than Flint, and no one disdains civilian life like Billy.

 

Billy tries to smile but it comes across as more of a snarl. “As a last resort. Yeah.”

 

Vane glances around and notices that the staring has only gotten worse the longer they've sat here. Mostly they're looking at Billy. Which is just unfair. Vane is both more dangerous and more sexy.

 

Billy notices his bristle of wounded pride and bites back a smug grin. “It's not my fault you look like a hipster opposum.”

 

Vane sputters. “I do not.”

 

Billy shrugs and stands to settle his bill.

 

He practically has to fight through a hoard of pretty students to get to the bar, while Vane is marooned in a sea of disapproving glares.

 

They finish their drinks, and then they part ways.

 

 

That week Vane notices that some of his familiar haunts are a bit less crowded, and the guys in his crew are jumpier than they used to be.

 

There are more cops sniffing around too. And not the usual patrol men in cruisers, but plain-clothes men in unmarked cars. That can't be good.

 

He meets Billy at the college bar again.

 

“I didn't believe it, but you're fucking right.”

 

Billy raises his eyebrows. “Told you so.”

 

“Fuck.”

 

 

 

It becomes a regular things, them meeting at the college bar, and not just because Billy finds it hilarious when the students give Vane shit about his dreads and then he loses it and tries to kill them with a beer bottle, or tells them in deeply explicit detail where they can shove the beer bottle and their concerns about 'cultural appropriation'.

 

It shouldn't be hilarious, but it's like those little chihuahua's that think they can take a freakin' doberman.

 

They're really lucky not to have been banned for life, by now, but as time goes on the pair of them get less and less rowdy on these little excursions.

 

Billy's right, and shit gets real. Teach causes mayhem, the law tries to the split them apart, Eleanor gets arrested, and Charles hears a rumour that John Silver (formerly known as Curly McFuckface) killed Dufresne by smashing his head in in a bar.

 

Charles doesn't ask Billy about these things when they meet for drinks, and Billy doesn't ask him about the tighter controls at the borders, the searches, and the loss of his product and employees.

 

Things are getting bad out there, and so if both of them drink a little deeper on the nights they go to college bars, neither of them make a point about it.

 

Billy's started growing a beard, and Charles has gone off smack for good this time. Their entire world is being held together only by the collective desperation of the men who inhabit it and the sheer force of will of one James Flint.

 

On good nights Charles feels like their victory is inevitable. On bad nights he knows they're already in the death spasms, and their way of life is over.

 

 

It's after a night like that that Vane wakes up by blinking blearily at a ceiling.

 

Huh. Crown molding. He doesn't have crown molding. He thinks Jack does and he's momentarily overcome with the horror that he might have drunkenly wandered over to Jack's place and done something truly embarrassing like declare his love that he sits bolt upright and becomes even more confused.

 

He wonders for a moment whether he's stumbled into an 'Arsenic and Old Lace' scenario and has been kidnapped by grannies, because he's on a couch in a sitting room that has been decorated by someone who is a) clearly old, b) slightly prissy and c) kitschy as fuck.

 

There's a porcelain shepherdess figurine on the side table and there's framed photos of the same kid everywhere...Vane squints and then sort of rolls off the couch and staggers to his feet towards the wall to get a better look.

 

He leans in, and yep. Subtract ten years, and maybe a hundred pounds of muscle and that is definitely Billy.

 

Awkward, skinny teenage Billy.

 

Vane looks at the picture propped carefully in the centre of the mantle. Gates with his arm around teenage Billy on the steps of a building holding some paper work. Billy looks shy and embarrassed, but Gates is positively beaming.

 

There's a document framed above the fireplace. Vane cringes with second-hand embarassment, _Jesus_ , and he thought Jack was sentimental, but Gates had had the adoption papers custom framed.

 

There's a sound by the door and he turns and to see Billy with his glorious arms and shoulders on display in a tank top. He's stonefaced as puts together what Charles has been doing.

 

“How much do you remember of last night?” he asks.

 

Vane frowns. “Some...not enough.”

 

Billy sighs. Vane nods at the mantle. “Why didn't you say?”

 

Billy flops down onto the couch Vane's just left. “Say what?”

 

“That Gates was your dad.”

 

“You knew I was his kid.” Billy points out.

 

“Well, yeah, but that's- you were his son. Not his protege.”

 

Billy looks blank. Charles doesn't think he's ever seen him look blank before. Quietly judgemental, yes. Poker-faced, sure. But, completely blank? No. Billy's got the kind of face you can usually read like a book.

 

“Well, what does it matter?” Billy asks.

 

Vane hesitates. “It doesn't, I suppose.”

 

Billy looks away, and then glances at him. “I've heard about where you come from. The ugly, true story. With your nasty father and the human trafficking. I got it from a friend of Jack Rackham's.”

 

“Oh.” is all Vane can think to say to that.

 

Billy looks at him thoughtfully. “Do you want to hear mine? The ugly, true version?”

 

Vane blinks. It's a strange ask. After all, so much of who they are is based on the lies they tell about themselves, and few of them, if any, are comfortable with the truth of how they came to be who they are.

 

But, Billy's never been one for bluster, everyone just knows him as Gates' kid, who is solid as they come and can chuck a man clear across the room if he's annoyed enough. When he first showed up Gates had gone round and told all the lads who had a bit of reputation that if they so much as looked at Billy slantwise they'd find themselves chopped up into little pieces and fed to the local pigs.

 

Yeah, Gates might have had the demeanor of a favourite grandfather but the man had been hard fucking core, and he had looked out for Billy from the beginning. Vane glances at the smiling faces over the mantle. He supposes the care Gates took of the kid makes sense now.

 

“I suppose I wanna hear it, if you're up for the telling.” he admits.

 

Billy stares at him, still blank, still _wrong_. “I murdered my pimp, and when Gates found out he helped me cover it up better.” He leans back and stares at the ceiling. “You ever cut a man up into pieces?”

 

Vane swallows. “You know I have.”

 

Billy grins still staring at the ceiling. “Course, I forgot about your little run in with Ned Lowe.” he chuckles and it's unnerving somehow.

 

Vane's not sure he remembers ever hearing Billy laugh before. He's seen him smile, but laugh? He can't remember, he feels like he should remember.

 

Vane quickly cycles through the maths. Billy has been part of the scene for at least ten years. He's looked about 22 for about 90% of that time which means that either he's a lot older than Vane thinks he is, was working for that creep for a short amount of time or....

 

“How long were you working before you killed 'im?”

 

Billy meets his gaze. “A while.” He dares Vane to ask another question. To show disgust or judgment. “The police used to visit the place I worked. Not for me, mostly. But I saw'em. I saw'em for what they are.”

 

Yeah, that's... shit. He thinks about how young Billy looks in the picture on the mantle. He thinks about the terror that was his own childhood. He'd gone back and killed the old man, but that had been too little too late. He wishes he'd had the same sort of guts as Billy, that he'd killed his Father long ago, and not just recently.

 

“You know I've been working as Flint's enforcer the last little while?” Billy asks.

 

Vane shakes his head. They don't usually talk about their respective criminal enterprises when they get together. Mostly they just drink and shit-talk people they don't like. “You know the pigs have got a special task-force just for me?” he responds sitting down next to Billy. “I haven't had the heart to tell Jack but I can't dodg'em much longer.”

 

“Then run.” Billy tells him frankly. “Run. Cause Flint was wrong, there's no saving this life. The whole world's gonna burn. If I was you, I'd get out while you still can.”

 

There's something so ominous about the way he says it. This isn't like Flint's constant whinging that the sky is falling. This feels like a concrete warning.

 

“Why?” Vane asks, wary and curious and starting to feel sick to his stomach.

 

Billy's mouth twitches up into almost a smile.

 

“Get out of London before the end of the month and you won't have to find out.”

 

The shriek of the kettle beckons Billy out of the room. He returns a moment later with a pair of mugs. They're in a matching geometric pattern of the kind that was very fashionable thirty years ago.

 

Vane nods and takes the tea. He glances at Billy. “You alright?”

 

Billy nods, looking at him funny. “You really don't remember last night do you?”

 

Vane shakes his head. Billy's face is still blank and he takes a sip of tea. “Just as well, I suppose.”

 

They don't go out drinking together again.

 

 

 

 

Vane tells Rackham about Billy's tip to get out of London (which he assumes really means out of England and the EU if they can swing it), and Rackham throws an epic shit fit.

 

Vane's not exactly sure how he manages to get bullied into fleeing the country, by Jack Raclham of all people, but as in all things, when he sets his mind to it somehow all resistance falls away in the face of Jack's sheer bloodymindedness, and Jack manages to bundle up his two paramours, plus one of his paramour's girlfriend, his entire wardrobe and most of Anne's weapons and transport them to a small island in the Carribean where they'll all live out the cliched retirement dream of all drug-runners, car-thieves and money-launderers.

 

Vane keeps an eye on the London papers, waiting for whatever it is Billy had warned him about to happen. And then it does. On the word of an anonymous state's witness who had pointed out both where the figurative and literal bodies were buried almost every person Vane every knew in the business in London finds themselves arrested, and most likely jailed for life.

 

He reads the names and doesn't find Billy's anywhere, and that's when he knows. Billy, who hated civilian life, and mistrusted cops more than anyone else Vane knew, had turned traitor, and got them all fucked by the government. He'd burned their entire world down, and it must have taken some planning to do it.

 

Vane wonders what made him do it, and he wonders most especially what happened that night he can't remember, what secrets Billy might have spilled, or what advice Vane might have foolishly given.

 

Part of him burns at it. Is outraged by the betrayal it represents, and the fucking violation of everything he'd cared about in his life back in London. You want revenge on someone you deal with it yourself, with fists or knives or whatever- you don't bring the law into it.

 

There's another part, that thinks of that skinny kid in the pictures in that run down apartment, the way Gates had hissed that if anyone laid a finger on his kid they'd lose that finger and wonders whether or not it might have been justice.

 

**Author's Note:**

> So I finally watched season 4 and IT DESTROYED MY SOUL. I love Billy and was cheering him on almost till the end, but...wince. Oh honey, what did you do? I also personally think a huge part of his motivation in this season hinges on what happened to Gates, and I had most of this written before, soo, just tweaked the ending a little.


End file.
